by Mike Cavel
1/350 Liberty Ship (Trumpeter)
These photos are my model of the 1/350 Trumpeter kit of the Liberty Ship Jeremiah O'Brien. I used the L'Arsenal Liberty Ship upgrade set which contains 79 resin parts and 157 photo-etch parts. In my opinion, this set greatly enhances the basic kit and is easily worth the cost. I also used a few L'Arsenal figures for the crew. The anchor chain came from some discount store jewelry.
I scribed the hull using a needle in a pin vise. I used guitar string for the funnel and mast supports, and invisible thread for the lines. I simulated some pulleys by drilling out some Evergreen styrene rod (about an eighth of an inch at a time), then cutting maybe 1/16" off for each pulley. I passed very thin wire through this ersatz pulley, twisted it upon itself, and then looped it again over the end of each of the ten booms. I also attached a pulley for each boom to the corresponding mast.
I used anchor bolts in the deck, one for each boom, and anchor bolts in the structures at the base of each boom. I placed a length of invisible thread through the loop which Trumpeter manufactured at the end of each boom, then used some white glue to attach it to itself. The end of this line then went through the pulley attached to the mast and then was looped into the proper winch and glued in place. This set the height of the boom. Then I ran a line from the anchor bolt in the structure up through the pulley on the end of the boom, then down to the anchor bolt on the deck. This was tedious, and I accidentally broke several lines as I went along.
My big disaster, however, occurred when I was moving the ship from one place to another with the superstructure fitted in place but not glued. The superstructure fell off and I then stepped on one end of it as I tried to react and catch it. Fortunately, Tony Bunch of L'Arsenal aided with damage control. These photos were taken by my friend and fellow modeler Carl Musselman.
